


Dear Wormwood

by polynya



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, Role Reversal, Zanpakutou Swap, i put the ship tag on there but not in a good way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 08:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30002235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polynya/pseuds/polynya
Summary: Renji hasn't spoken to Rukia in 30 years, not since she turned her back on the noble clan that adopted them both. Now he's got a warrant for her arrest.
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Rukia
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Dear Wormwood

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooooo, I've been doing AU requests on my Tumblr, and I got the following one:
> 
> _kevxoxo said:_
> 
> _Hey an AU request for you:_
> 
> _During Renruki separation what if the roles were reversed. Like if Renji gets adopted (in some rival noble clan) and Rukia is left behind. Or else if Renji is going to be executed instead of Rukia. Want to feel the angst from Rukia's POV._
> 
> _Let me know if these scenarios are good enough._
> 
> _Thanks as always ☺️❤️_
> 
> It's a great request, actually, but I immediately used this as an excuse to write out a scene that has been charging me rent in my own head since at least 2019. The actual role swap in this scenario is what if Renji had gotten Sode no Shirayuki, a zanpakutou who embodies patience and planning and thoughtfulness, and Rukia ended up with Zabimaru, a zanpakutou who just wants to fuck shit up.
> 
> It's a bit more... substantial than most of the other AU's in the series (you can find them [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24861718/chapters/67618076)) and also I finally had an excuse to name a fic after one of my favorite Oh Hellos songs.
> 
> Rated T for Canon-type violence and bad words.

The air is heavy and thick in the World of the Living. It is oppressive, as if this very plane has its own reiatsu, as if it intends to oppose their mission. It’s just a thunderstorm gathering, though, a combination of atmospheric pressure and electrical potential.

Kuchiki Renji, Lieutenant of the Sixth Division and Heir to the great and noble Kuchiki Clan would like to finish this up before they are drenched, but he isn’t optimistic.

He stands on the roof of a human house, looking down at a nearly identical residence across the street, although this one bears signage indicating that it is also a neighborhood medical clinic. 

Renji cannot feel her, but he doesn’t expect to. When Rukia doesn’t want to be found, she doesn’t get found, end of story. Renji can feel the human though, the human whom Rukia has given her powers. He can’t fathom why, but all of Rukia’s ways are inscrutable, they always have been. From the morning she saved his life from an enraged water vendor to the evening she walked away from the adopted family that gave them both names and a place in the world, Renji has never understood a single thought that entered her thick skull. Even if he can’t understand her, though, she is transparent to him, predictable.

He just needs to draw her out. And that part is easy.

Byakuya says nothing. Renji has explained his logic, and Byakuya is giving him the six feet of rope he needs to hang himself. Byakuya is also inscrutable, yet predictable. Sometimes, Renji wonders how the man managed to live in the same house as Rukia for as long as he did.

“Nii-sama,” Renji says softly. Byakuya does not like being asked for reassurances, but on this point, Renji requires it. “The orders said capture or kill.”

Byakuya waits.

“Shall I strive for the first?”

Byakuya makes a tiny throat-clearing noise. “I have fulfilled my obligation to that girl. I owe her nothing. Do what is necessary.”

Byakuya would never come out and _tell_ Renji to kill Rukia, but the message is clear enough. Despite separating herself from the family thirty years ago, a trial, a jail sentence will be an embarrassment to the Kuchiki, an exhumation of old mistakes. Rukia will always be an inkblot on Byakuya’s conscience. Byakuya has never held this against Renji, which is probably the only sign of affection his adoptive brother has ever shown him. 

Renji has done nearly everything Byakuya has ever asked of him. He is an obedient brother, hardworking and respectful. He practices the family sword form, he studies the history of Soul Society, he respects his elders. He has risen in the ranks of the Gotei, he has gained his bankai, he wears the kenseikan, even though they bite into his scalp. But Renji was only adopted into the family for one reason: to ensure Rukia’s compliance, and in that, he failed. 

It is time to make up for that.

Renji jumps lightly from one rooftop to the other and over the ridge of the roof. The boy’s window is on the rear side of the house. He drops down onto the windowsill. His Hell Butterfly hovers at shoulder height. “Go on,” he urges it forward, to create a passage through the wall of the house. He hopes his hunch is correct. He does not relish the idea of murdering a young human in his bed.

It is not an issue. A dark shape rips itself from the shadows, but Renji has his zanpakutou from her sheath in an instant. Instead of Zabimaru’s wicked serrations, however, he finds himself blocking the worst _shakkahou_ he’s seen since Byakuya sent him down to Shin’ou to scout out next year’s crop of students. It’s enough to momentarily blind him, though, and he leaps down to the ground to find steadier footing.

This isn’t right. Although Rukia prefers to rely on her sword, it’s not out of her M.O. to use kidou for a sneak attack. But why bother with a distraction when she could have just blown his head off? Rukia’s kidou are rarely elegant and Renji isn’t sure she even _knows_ the chants, but what she has is _power_. Or rather, what she _had_.

Renji scans the backyard slowly. The grass at his feet is freezing over in a slowly widening circle. _Careful, careful!_ Sode no Shirayuki sings in his mind. 

Suddenly, he feels the crackle of _hainawa_ and he leaps out of the way just in time, flinging an avalanche of ice in the direction of his attacker. Rukia’s kick catches him in mid-air, but he blocks it with a forearm. It doesn’t ring through his bones the way it should, though.

Renji lands on his heels and skids a few feet. Rukia’s toes hit the dirt just a second after. For a moment, their eyes meet. The air is so humid, it’s thick enough to swim in.

“Abarai,” Rukia snarls, baring a sharp canine. “Of course, they would send you.” She snorts. “Scratch that, I bet you volunteered.”

Renji sneers at her, but ignores the dig at his name. “I’m impressed, Rukia. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone botch a patrol mission so thoroughly.” He sheaths his sword. 

Rukia barks out a laugh. “What’s this? Your sense of fairness? Gonna try to kill me with your bare hands, then?”

He’d rather not kill her at all. Byakuya will be peeved, but Renji doesn’t like the idea of running through an unarmed woman. “What is this, Rukia? You’ve given a human your full powers, haven’t you? Why?”

“It was an accident,” Rukia mumbles, her eyes darting to the side.

Renji narrows his eyes. “Where did you get that gigai?”

“A friend.”

“There was an intelligence report from the Stealth Force. A Menos showed up, just for a few minutes before it was driven back to Hueco Mundo with a sword wound. I assumed that was your doing, but you don’t seem to _have_ a sword at the moment. Unless the Menos took that rusty piece of--”

“ _Fuck_ , Renji, don’t you ever get sick of listening to your own stupid voice?” Rukia spits, and in a second, she is on him, a blur of fists and feet.

Renji didn’t put his sword away because he thought he wouldn’t need it. He put it away because he knew that he would need two hands to deal with Rukia in hand-to-hand, even at 2% of her power, or whatever dregs she has left.

“I’m trying--” he backpedals furiously, blocking blow after blow, “--to _help_ you! I realize that your brain has probably atrophied down to the size of a walnut-- ouch! -- but doesn’t any of this seem _fishy_ to you?”

“The only thing _fishy_ is _you_ questioning an order!” Rukia snaps, as Renji narrowly avoids getting his feet swept from under him. “We may not have much for brains in Eleven, but unlike the Sixth, at least we use what we’ve got!”

Suddenly, Renji manages to loop one of his arms under hers and spin her into a half-nelson. Her feet pedal furiously in mid-air. His spare hand presses her wrist against her rib cage to keep her from clawing the skin off his arm, and also to try and support her weight. “Can you breathe?” he makes sure, as he tries to figure out a way he can hold her still with one hand long enough to get a binding on her.

“Yes,” she grunts angrily. “Why are you doing this? Don’t you know you’re gonna be in trouble with _Nii-sama_ if you bring me back alive?” She spits the honorific like venom.

“You’re wrong,” Renji mutters. He hates this. He hates how _stupid_ this is. He hates that after all this time, her stupid arrows still find their mark, _every single time_. “You’re wrong if you think he’s spent _even a second_ thinking about you since you threw away everything he gave you. You’re trash to him.”

“Is that what I am to you, too?” Rukia asks archly.

“You’re--” Renji starts to say, and then hits the deck as a sword whistles through the air where his neck had been a moment before. He loses his grip on Rukia, and she rolls away, but Renji’s got more immediate problems. He shifts to a crouch, his hand loose on Sode no Shirayuki’s hilt as he scans the shadows for his assailant. 

As it happens, said assailant isn’t exactly subtle. “Hey, Rukia, this guy wears the same pajamas as you. Friend of yours?”

It is the boy, the one who buzzes with reiatsu that both is and isn’t Rukia’s. He is a gangling puppy of a human being, all elbows and ears. His hair is an unnatural orange and sticks out from his head as though he has just rolled out of bed. Given the hour, perhaps he has. 

“Get out of here, Ichigo, this guy isn’t a joke!” Rukia screams, and Renji realizes that she is genuinely frightened. 

“He sure looks like one,” the kid, Ichigo declares, hefting his sword up onto his shoulder. It is clearly a zanpakutou, but it is absurdly large. He can barely lift the thing. “And people say my hair is a dumb color.”

“My name is Kuchiki Renji,” Renji informs him. “Assistant Captain of the Sixth Division of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. I am here to take Kuchiki Rukia, Sixth Seat of the Eleventh into custody for the crime of transferring her shinigami powers to a human. I do not wish to kill you, human, but if you interfere, I will not hesitate.”

“Wait, what?” Ichigo sputters. “Rukia, I thought your name was Inuzuri? Is this guy your brother? If so, he sure got all the height genes. I am so, so confused.”

Rukia rises to her feet. Her face is pale in the moonlight. A line of blood shines on her forehead, glassy against the black of her tattoos. “He’s my fiance.”

“Your _what_ now?”

Renji snorts. “ _Former_ fiance.”

“I don’t recall breaking up with you!” Rukia barks.

Renji wants to laugh. He doesn’t know which is more typical Rukia-- the idea that rejecting his family and not speaking to him for thirty years would somehow _not count as a break-up_ , or that _now_ is somehow an appropriate time to talk about this.

There are a lot of feelings pumping through Renji’s heart, but he freezes them to ice and pushes them away. There is no room for feelings on a battlefield. “I am taking Rukia back to Soul Society. If you do not resist me, I swear to it that no harm will come to her before her trial.” Byakuya wanting Rukia dead is just a feeling, too. The Kuchiki must stand for justice, right? This is a good compromise, Renji rationalizes. _I cannot kill her in cold blood in front of a witness, but if they force my hand, things happen._ Surely even Byakuya would agree with this line of logic.

Ichigo’s eyes dart to Rukia. “What about after the trial? Is this, like, a thing where you pay a fine, or…?”

“I’ll be executed, most likely,” Rukia replies dryly.

Ichigo’s jaw clenches.

“You’re a valuable asset to the Gotei,” Renji corrects. “Central may be lenient.”

The two strongest young shinigami in their generation, people used to say, when Rukia and Renji entered the Sixth together. His iron nerves tempering her volatility, her fiery passion igniting his cold aloofness. The next Kyouraku and Ukitake. No wonder the Kuchiki plucked them from obscurity. 

Renji doesn’t know what people say about them now. Now that he is the sole Heir to the Kuchiki. Now that she fights among the animals of the Eleventh. People’s voices go quiet at his approach. Byakuya says it isn’t wise to listen to gossip in any case.

“Hmmm,” Ichigo shifts his sword to an attack stance. “I don’t like the sounds of those odds. I think maybe I’ll just beat your ass instead.”

“Ichigo, _move!_ ” Rukia starts, but Renji has heard the words he needs to hear.

Renji’s favorite parts of the Kuchiki sword form are the quick draw techniques. He is not as fast as Byakuya, but he is very, very fast, and his reach is better. In an instant, he has closed the distance between himself and the boy. Maybe it was a lucky reflex or maybe it was Rukia’s warning, but Ichigo manages to get that huge sword up just in time to avoid having his chest sliced open. Renji’s assault is merciless. If it weren’t for the stupid power limiter, which Renji isn’t used to, he’s sure he would have cracked the boy’s zanpakutou clear in half. Despite her appearance, Sode no Shirayuki is not a delicate sword and Renji swings her with the inevitability of a glacier.

As Ichigo backpedals, his foot catches on a loose paver, and he stumbles. Renji raises his arm, preparing to deliver the killing blow, when suddenly, a knee in his back punches the air from his lungs, and his elbow is jerked forcibly backwards. 

“ _NOW!”_ Rukia’s voice bellows in Renji’s ear.

The stumble was a feint, because Ichigo is Rukia’s student, and of course she has taught him all her dirty tricks. Renji realizes he has made the mistake of thinking he could beat Rukia, just because she has no powers and no zanpakutou. She still knows him better than anyone, though. She knows his moves and she knows what a rank fool he is. As Ichigo’s sword plunges towards his stomach, Renji flares his reiatsu as best as he can, and hopes Rukia’s pet human isn’t strong enough to pierce it. 

But before the blow lands, Ichigo’s eyes widen. He lets out a gurgle and falls sideways.

“Renji,” says Captain Kuchiki. “What is taking so long?”

It seems as though time is standing still, except that the pool of blood surrounding Ichigo’s prone form is growing, growing. 

“No,” Rukia murmurs. “No, no, no.” Suddenly, her feet scrabble up Renji’s back, and she launches herself off of his shoulders. “ _You!!_ ” she screams.

There is nothing she can do to Byakuya. Her hands glow with raw kidou, but she is weak. It is the desperate, useless move of a cornered animal.

Renji knows that animal instincts are useless, which is why he has trained every day to eradicate them. To ignore his fear, to replace his body’s natural reflexes with the kata of his sword form. So even though he knows Rukia’s attack is hopeless, he cannot help but react to an attack against his Clan Head. 

Rukia hits the ground next to Ichigo with a dull thump.

Her body is wrapped in the glowing chains of _hainawa_.

Renji’s hand shakes, his breathing is heavy.

Rukia is screaming filthy obscenities at both of them.

Byakuya regards Renji silently. His eyes linger on Renji's sword, naked in his hand. A different reflex, and there would be two corpses on the ground.

“She should face trial, Nii-sama,” Renji says softly. “If we do not uphold justice, who shall?”

“The law, Renji,” Byakuya corrects him. “We uphold _the law_.” He jerks his head at the screaming woman on the ground. “Pick her up. Others are coming and you will only become _more_ sentimental if I am forced to kill additional humans.”

Renji kneels and gathers Rukia in his arms. She does not make it easy, probably in hopes that he will toss her over his shoulder instead of this humiliation, but _she_ is the brute, not him. He will not give her the satisfaction. 

As Renji narrowly avoids a headbutt, though, he realizes that this is not merely a display of defiance. It is a distraction. “Nii-sama,” he says as he straightens up, “I do not think the human is dead.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Byakuya sighs. “I have severed his _hakusui_ and _saketsu_. Even if he survives the wound, he will be powerless, and Rukia’s power should return to her.”

Byakuya considers his lieutenant’s full arms for a moment, makes a disgusted face, and then draws his sword to open the senkaimon home himself. 

While Byakuya’s attention is turned, Rukia leans into Renji’s, her breath hot on his jaw. “I will _kill_ him for this,” she spits in his ear. “And if you get in my way, I will kill you too.”

“Then we are enemies,” Renji replies quietly, “since I am sworn to protect him.”

The first fat drops of rain begin to fall from the sky.


End file.
